CHAPTER THIRTY
IVY
A ll I see is red.
Somewhere in my mind, I know this is fruitless. Barreling toward my executioners is an ass-backward strategy. But my father risked his life for me every day. And my mother doesn’t belong anywhere near this world.
So, I steer toward the treatment center, Shady Pines. It’s fuzzy and fast, and my gut is devising resolutions without my brain’s consent. The margins of said resolutions are frayed and tattered and stained in various shades of crimson.
Grave and threatening calamities color everything darker.
My mother is missing. I contacted our housekeeper, Gertie, at the crack of dawn.
She’s quiet and kindhearted, fancying herself a silent fairy who flies in the background, magically granting our wishes from the shadows.
Gertie is the one who inspired my baking hobby.
Years of pastries and pies miraculously appearing on our countertop to either celebrate momentous occasions or lament disquieting ones revealed the enchantment sugary warmth could provide.
I’ve never heard her speak much above a whisper.
Until this morning.
She wailed hysterically, claiming my mother had vanished into thin air.
It required some finagling, but armed with Gertie’s timeline, I hacked into the city’s traffic cameras a couple of hours ago and found the assholes who had taken my mother.
They’re holding her in a dilapidated warehouse on the outskirts of town. The clarity on the video was questionable as I watched the second vehicle glide into the parking lot, but I suspect my dad may be there too.
I texted the information to Ryker—address, license plates, grainy captor descriptions, and my tentative plans.
He promised me he’d relay it to Wells and then proceeded to text me a slew of expletives and commands, which could’ve been summed up in a simple stay the fuck out of there.
When I eventually blew him off after assuring him I had it all under control, I acquired a deeper empathy for Rena because he called me incessantly until I dismantled another burner.
My father had twenty in my bag. He’s a genius.
I’ve peeled through about half of them—all so I could circumvent the domineering men in my life.
I tried to hack into the Shady Pines’ security cameras to assure myself my father wasn’t there, but the whole system is down. And when I called, they adamantly declared they’d been advised by legal counsel not to divulge any information regarding Dr. Kingston.
My father.
What in the actual fuck?
My rage has sought solace in plans concocted through silent seething, in flames swallowing the hollowness of betrayal, in breadcrumbs scattered for the ravenous loved ones who mirrored traitors.
Fury from behind a curtain, like the Great and Powerful Oz.
Today, the veil tears.
I’m swaddled in a lung-suffocating bulletproof vest and adorned head to toe with weapons, like a psychotic assassin. And you know, I hope they see me fucking coming because if I’m going to unload a mag of rage into someone, I want them looking me in my eyes when I’m doing it.
Like I’m a badass gangster .
Yeah, that’s what I’m telling myself to pump up for the impending wrath, but I’m actually just a girl who grew up with pigtailed braids and family dinners and a healthy interest in superhero movies.
I’m not a killer.
I’m scared out of my wits.
But for the two people who devoted their lives to shroud me in a protective cocoon, even though I’m still pissed as all get-out at my mother, I’ll become one.
I’ll sell that part of my soul to keep theirs intact—an aberration from the skittery career plans Celeste and I cooked up. The life of a gallery owner billows out more like a hazy delusion than an achievable aspiration.
But erasing myself, hacking into security systems, and laying traps for the country’s most savage triggermen?
An even greater crackbrained hallucination.
How is this my fucking life?
I’m confident Wells will swoop in and rescue my mother. The riled hit men trying to kill me won’t anticipate that. They’ll expect me to show up at my father’s treatment facility.
I’ve always hated disappointing people, so off I go.
The ground is blanketed in a heaping sheet of snow, thanks to a storm that rolled through yesterday.
It adds a chilling backdrop to the death trap I’m trudging toward.
The slush-slogged roads are slippery, but the all-wheel-drive Porsche Cayenne Turbo I bought has both speed and traction, so there’s that.
Slowing to a crawl near Shady Pines, I scope out the vehicles and immediately identify three in question—a beefy SUV, a crossover utility car, and a scraggly coupe, which has clearly seen better days.
It isn’t so much the makes or models roiling my nerves; it’s the abhorrent horror show lurking within them.
All at once, their bloodthirsty eyes land on me—the coveted guest of honor.
A sacrificial lamb .
In a bizarre out-of-body experience, I flash a caustic megawatt grin and offer an audacious, full-finger wave.
This is the fuzziness I was referring to—the exploits my brain isn’t weighing in on.
Goading taunts hurled at a firing squad.
The black SUV is the first to rally the resolve. A brief rotation of chunky tires.
Quickly jerking to a zealous charge.
And I’m gone, bulldozing through the goopy brown snow, the treads of my tires working overtime to procure the needed traction, windows sprayed and splattered with sludge.
Three rabid hunters are blazing a snow-laden trail in my wake.
But they don’t know these roads like I do.
I swerve around a parked car, narrowly avoiding another charging at me as I white-knuckle the steering wheel for a sharp turn.
After a short stint on the main road, zipping between a minivan and a sedan, one of my shadows—the battered coupe—fishtails into a snowbank. I glance in my rearview mirror and tsk.
We’ve barely gone two miles, dumbass.
One down.
Buckle up, motherfuckers.
Daddy didn’t only train me to loot people’s secrets. He taught me how to handle a damn car. My rear wheels sputter, showers of muck raining down like a fuck-off shield.
The SUV revs in aggression and impatiently weaves to edge out the pickup truck beside me, but that’s not where I’m going.
I jump the median, yank the emergency brake, andspin to face the opposite direction with a judder.
Then, I flip that cocksucker off, wrench the gearshift, hammer the gas pedal, and veer right toward the highway.
I’d prefer to lead them onto a country road with less innocents, but the snowplows decided the back roads weren’t a priority, so I’m opting not to sacrifice speed and strand myself like a sitting snowman.
Shifting with a jerk, I trek up the on-ramp, sirens blaring in the distance and a chorus of horns fading.
My little stunt, switching directions, left the dickwads quite a ways back in the slush.
Whizzing in and out of rush-hour traffic, I put as much distance as possible between us while assuring they don’t lose me.
That’s not the goal.
I bolt in between several more cars before sliding smoothly into the right lane and careening down the exit ramp to the next town over—less people here, and like the west end of Royal Oaks, where my mom is being held, there are some abandoned buildings.
My tires squeal while shifting roughly on a turn, filling me with confidence that even my moronic shadows will estimate my location.
There’s an old school here, used for a haunted fair in the fall, but eerily empty now.
The icy oaks reach their fingered branches out in warning, but I’m in too deep to heed it.
I tuck the car in tight behind an area of the building that juts out but leave it running in case I need to flee. The red and white taillights serve as a beacon, ricocheting off the sparkling trees to reflect onto the windows of the school in an optical illusion of my positioning.
Taking out the 6.5 Creedmoor sniper rifle with incendiary rounds, I perch it on my rolled-down window, look through the scope, and wait.
The crisp air stings my eyes, cheeks, and nose as my breath imparts a daunting puff of white.
My angle will grant me a glimpse of their approach before they have a grasp on my precise placement.
Suspended in a tinderbox of ticking seconds.
The SUV is first on the scene. The crunch of its tires through the wet, crinkly snow reaches my ears seconds prior to the sighting. The waning sunlight bounces off the icy landscape, shimmering a stream of white illumination onto the windshield.
Two tatted monsters. Guns drawn. Mean mugs.
Gas tank on the driver’s side.
I aim and fire.
And rocket to the other side of the car from the blast.
Fuck me. My ribs. My head .
Bonked and bloody.
Dazed.
Shaking myself free from the fog descending upon me, I shove the passenger door open, climb out in an ungraceful flop to my knees, and conceal my body behind the Porsche. The crossover utility vehicle pulls in, and I lift my rifle again, bracing it on the trunk.
I’m thrust backward with a stabbing jolt before I fire.
Leveled to the crunchy snow.
Shot.
Fuck.
My lungs burn.
I frantically check myself. Frozen fingers swiping and patting over my trembling body.
The vest. Shot on top of the vest.
Jesus, Dad, you saved my life again.
Clambering my way back to a stooping stance, I ignore the fiery sting licking at my chest and ribs, peek around the bumper, raise my gun, and aim at the gas tank on the crossover, which is still inching toward me.
Another monster. On foot. In pursuit.
I shoot the bastard, then the gas tank.
The explosion thrusts me backward into the building and bushes, my rifle flying in a separate direction.
Wrecked.
The sky topples, crystal branches pulsing in anger, icicles plummeting like daggers.
Crushed.
My blood chills in my veins. Shivers cascade down my spine, racking through my limbs. Fingers aching.
Beaten.
And the monstrous beast?
Ferocity drips off him like the melting snow.
Vicious and indomitable.
He’s still coming for me .
Hunted.
His blurred silhouette dashes toward me as the clouds dance. The dirty white ground, glimmering trees, and wavy air all quiver around me.
I’m prey.
I pluck out the pistol stowed in my waistband. My hand trembles as I flip the safety off and lift it from my slumped and flattened frame.
My eyes play tricks on me. The snow-capped trees and blazing fires andhaunted schoolyard whirl around him.
I can’t shoot that man.
His resolute gaze shackles me.
Captured.
Harsh, jagged breaths. Sharp and heavy.
Warm, roaring waves break over me—no, that can’t be. I’m confused.
It’s winter. Freezing. Ohio.
A whistling breeze and blood flow assault my hearing.
His lips move, but my ears won’t cooperate. I don’t know what he’s saying. He gently lowers my gun, and the brush of his fingertips burns like acid against my frigid skin. My head shakes vehemently in protest.
“I’ve got you, baby.” His gritty, sandpaper rasp curls around me like a ripple in a pond.
“No,” I mutter. The scents of sulfur and winter, blood and death choke me so my objection swirls in with the smoke.
He ignores me, scooping me into his arms and saddling me around him like he’s strapping on one of those front-wearing infant papooses. His lips caper against my matted hair. “You’re okay, Little Storm. Hold tight while I get you out of here.”
Little Storm. Wells?
“You came,” I cry into the warmth of his neck, my eyes vibrating beneath the lids as he hoists and jostles my limp form—a hunk of flesh and bones and wonky muscles spurning proper function .
My vision may be hazy, but I’m drunk on the husk of his voice and the cushion of his arms.
The scent of his sugar and scotch—an aroma infused into my marrow.
“Of course I did, Ives,” he croons while ducking behind a tree, melding my bulky, battle-clad form to his.
The chilled bark scratches my scalp, and blood trickles down my icy cheek, the copper taste coating my chafed lips as he fires several shots.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
They’re still coming for me.
“To the ends of the earth, remember?” he asks.
I remember.
To the ends of the earth.
Maybe even to the depths of Hell.